Circle (NYSE: CRCL) has published a long blog post explaining how it splits USDC revenue with partners on Friday, October 16.
The post was authored by Circle’s chief commercial officer Kash Razzaghi, and it does not name a competitor.
However, it is being seen as a response to Open USD (OUSD), the rival stablecoin that was recently integrated across Stripe’s stablecoin stack.
OUSD is powered by a new issuer that is promising to hand back more of the money a stablecoin earns, and the content of Circle’s latest blog reads as if it’s a response to that move.
Where does USDC revenue go?
Circle reported that it made around $1.4 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026. It said about $819 million of that revenue, which is around 59 cents of every dollar, went to the wallets, exchanges, banks and payment firms that distribute USDC, along with transaction costs.
Another $473 million, which was reported as roughly 34 cents of every dollar, was reinvested in licenses, banking ties, settlement liquidity, compliance and blockchain work.
Circle said that it made 7 cents of net profit per revenue dollar.
The redemption fight at the center of it
When the Open Standard Consortium launched the OUSD token on June 30, it pitched that businesses could mint and redeem for free with no volume limits.
It also stated that partners can collect all of the reserve earnings minus a small management fee.
When Stripe announced that it had integrated OUSD across its stablecoin stack on September 30, it stated that OUSD does not come with minting or burning fees. Stripe also mentioned that it allows partner businesses to earn rewards tied to their activity and balances.
According to Circle, free redemption already exists. It stated that all its customers can cash out through standard bank rails at no charge, with settlement in up to two business days.
Circle pointed out that all its customers who move money over the Circle Payments Network or build on its platform can now redeem USDC for free. It added that this has near-real-time, 24/7 settlement capabilities.
Circle reported that it redeemed $71.8 billion of USDC in the first quarter of 2026, which is around 90% of the supply circulating at the time.
A challenger about one-hundredth the size
The gulf between USDC and OUSD is very large currently, with the former’s supply sitting around $72.6 billion per CoinMarketCap data. OUSD, on the other hand, has roughly 1% of that.
Since the launch of OUSD, Circle’s leadership has said something about it at least twice in four months. The first response came around the same time that it was launched. Circle’s CEO Jeremy Allaire had played down the launch and said that Circle welcomed competition.
However, Circle’s shares declined by around 13% following the announcement of the OUSD launch and the message that its issuers would distribute reserve yield to partners instead of keeping it.
Open Standard Consortium is backed by more than 140 companies, including Stripe, Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard and BlackRock.
Some analysts who shared their thoughts following the launch acknowledged that it was a threat to Circle’s business, and one of those who said that then is Rob Hadick of Dragonfly.
However, that was not the position of everyone; Clear Street’s Owen Lau said that the selloff looked like an overreaction. Lau pointed to Paxos’ consortium-backed USDG, which had reached only about $3 billion in supply.
Coinbase and Binance take the biggest cuts
Circle says more than 150 partners share USDC’s economics, but the payouts are heavily concentrated. Circle wrote, “The partners that bring the most USDC to market earn the most.”
It cited the second-quarter earnings of Coinbase, which is its largest and longest-standing partner. Circle reported that Coinbase held an average of $20 billion of USDC inside its products, more than 30% of the quarter-end supply, and captured roughly half of USDC’s economic rewards over the past year.
Binance is another big beneficiary. The world’s largest exchange invested $100 million in Circle and signed a five-year deal under which Circle pays it a monthly fee to promote USDC.
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